Michael Jordan is considered by most basketball fans to be the greatest player of all time and for good reason. Most people know him for his unbelievable skills and determination on the court but he is also a tremendously successful businessman and entrepreneur.
Michael Jordan’s net worth is estimated at above $3 billion and he was the first athlete to feature in the list of Forbes 400.
The only other athletes known to have a net worth of over $1 billion are LeBron James and Tiger Woods, though other stars like Stephen Curry are on their way to joining their ranks.
Michael Jordan is among the most popular sports personalities with a global appeal.
How Much is Michael Jordan Worth in 2024?
- Net worth: Over $3 billion in 2024.
- Major income sources: NBA salaries, endorsements, business ventures.
- Total NBA salaries over 15 seasons: $94 million.
- Endorsements: $1.8 billion (pre-tax) from brands like Nike, Gatorade, and Hanes.
- Charlotte Hornets sale: $2.5+ billion.
- Real estate: $100+ million.
- NASCAR team: $150 million.
- Car collection & private jet: $68.5 million.
- Stocks & cryptocurrencies: Unknown.
- Venture capital investments: Unknown.
Michael Jordan’s Net Worth: Full Breakdown
Because most of Michael Jordan’s assets, investments, and income sources are held privately and not through publicly traded companies, no one knows his exact net worth other than him.
Nevertheless, we were able to collect enough information about his various investments and income sources to construct a thorough estimate of his net worth.
We found that Michael Jordan’s net worth in 2024 is over $3 billion. Here’s how it breaks down.
| Assets or Income Sources | Contribution to Net Worth |
| Total endorsements income | $1.8 billion (pre-tax) |
| Total NBA salaries over 15 seasons | $94 million |
| Charlotte Hornets sale | $2.5+ billion |
| Real estate | $100+ million |
| Stocks & cryptocurrencies | Unknown |
| NASCAR team | $150 million |
| `Venture capital investments | Unknown |
| Car collection & private jet | $68.5 million |
| Total Net Worth | $3+ billion |
6 Interesting Facts About Michael Jordan the GOAT
- Early Life: Born on February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York.
- NBA Career: Drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984; won six NBA championships and five MVP awards.
- Endorsements: First athlete to sign a deal with Nike; created the Air Jordan brand.
- Investments: Owned Charlotte Hornets, invested in NASCAR team 23XI Racing, and other ventures.
- Philanthropy: Donated millions to various causes including Make-A-Wish Foundation and Novant Health clinics.
- Lifestyle: Lives a luxurious life with properties in multiple states and a private golf course.
Latest News & Controversies
NASCAR Controversy: Jordan’s NASCAR team, 23XI Racing, is embroiled in a standoff with NASCAR over charter agreements. This has created uncertainty for Bubba Wallace, one of the team’s top drivers, as his future remains at risk due to potential loss of charters.
Mansion Sale: After over a decade on the market, Jordan’s Highland Park, Illinois mansion is finally set to sell for approximately $14.8 million.
The Makings of the GOAT
Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born on February 17, 1963, in the Fort Greene neighborhood of New York City’s Brooklyn borough. His father James R. Jordan Sr. was an equipment supervisor while his mother Deloris was a bank employee.
Jordan has four siblings. They include elder brothers James R. Jordan Jr. and Larry Jordan, an elder sister named Deloris, and a younger sister Roslyn.
Jordan’s parents moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. when he was only a toddler. Jordan went to the Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington where he displayed all-around athletic skills and along with basketball, he also played baseball and football.
Jordan tried getting into the varsity basketball team as a sophomore but was rejected because he was only 5 feet 11 inches tall which was considered short for the game.
Jordan later admitted that the rejection was one of the toughest phases in his career, especially as he discovered that one of his friends was selected for the team based on his height.
It would turn out that this rejection may have been exactly what he needed to make him the incredibly determined and persistent athlete he is.
Jordan shared his frustration with his mother who advised him to “get in the gym and work harder.” In ‘The Last Dance’ documentary Deloris said,
“We both cried, ’cause I knew he wanted to really compete with the other guys. My words to him was, ‘If you really want it, you work hard over the summer,’ And he did that summer! That summer, he focused. He would practice all day. That basketball never left his hand.”
Jordan worked hard and his height increased by four inches between his sophomore and junior years and he eventually landed the coveted spot in the varsity team. His height eventually rose to 6 feet 6 inches and he was soon a top prospect in the country.
The Beginning of an Unbeatable Career
Jordan proved his mettle in the varsity team and was selected to play in the 1981 McDonald’s All-American Game where he scored a whopping 30 points. While many universities were looking to have him on board, he finally accepted a scholarship from the University of North Carolina where he played and majored in cultural geography.
Jordan averaged 13.5 points per game at the University and was named ACC Freshman of the Year. He was selected to the NCAA All-American First Team in both his sophomore and junior seasons.
Michael Jordan’s Unbelievable NBA Career
The Chicago Bulls drafted Jordan in 1984 in a seven-year deal valued at $6 million.
The Bulls immediately knew they had made the right decision. In his first year, he averaged 28.2 points per game along with 5.9 assists and 6.5 rebounds per game, an absurdly good stat line for a rookie, especially in the 80s.
Naturally, he won the Rookie of the Year Award for his tremendous performance that season. His career would only go up from there. In the 1986-87 season, he suffered an injury and only played 18 games but he was miraculously able to lead the league in scoring that year nonetheless. He would go on to lead the league in points for the next 6 seasons.
At the end of his fifth year with the Bulls, Jordan and the owners agreed to extend his contract for eight years. The deal was valued at $25 million making it by far the biggest deal any player had ever received up until that point. He played with the team until 1993 when he announced his first retirement from the game after the devastating murder of his dad.
He returned to the NBA and played for the Chicago Bulls in 1995, winning 3 more consecutive scoring titles and six NBA championships. However, he announced his second retirement in 1999 and while he returned in a year it wasn’t as a player but as the owner and president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards NBA franchise.
However, soon enough he renounced his stake and returned to the Washington Wizards as a player and played his final session in 2002-2003 before announcing his final retirement from the game.
Meanwhile, Jordan has a splendid record as a professional athlete and has the following laurels to his name.
- Still holds the career scoring average record with 30.12 points per game
- Recorded 32,292 total points, currently ranking 5th out of all players despite playing at least nearly 300 fewer games than all of the players above him
- Won the season scoring title 10 times, most of them consecutively
- Jordan was a five-time NBA MVP and an NBA Finals MVP for each final he has played in (6)
- Nine consecutive games scoring 40 points or higher
- Jordan Was awarded All-American & NCAA Player of the Year award twice
- Jordan became the first NBA player to record a triple-double (10+ Points, assists, and rebounds) in an All-Star game
- He was part of two US Olympic gold-winning teams
- Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016
As an appreciation of his achievements, Jordan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 and is still considered the greatest basketball player of all time by most fans.
Michael Joran Net Worth: The Making of Air Jordan
When Michael Jordan was just starting to create waves in the field, it was natural for him to look for endorsements for shoe brands.
Back then, the Converse brand was quite popular among athletes, and legendary players like Magic Johnson and Larry Birds wore them. Converse however wasn’t interested in having Jordan as a brand ambassador and Adidas, Jordan’s first choice, turned him down.
However, Jordan got an offer from a small shoe brand that focused on running shoes, Nike.
Despite Jordan’s attachment to Adidas, he signed a five-year deal with Nike valued at $2.5 million – a record until then. Importantly, the deal had a clause that said that Jordan would get a share of profits from every pair of shoes sold.
Jordan’s agent, David Falk wanted Nike to come up with a “Michael Jordan” brand but eventually, they settled for the “Air Jordan” brand.
Nike Executive Sonny Vaccaro knew that the deal would be immensely consequential for the entire sportswear industry, saying:
“It was like a set fee in the 80s; the most that anybody got was maybe $100,000. But now you were free to make deals. He opened up a business world that was not available to anybody else and he created an item that will live on. Where else in the world can you see somebody’s old shoe now worth $1m at auction?“
Meanwhile, the Jordan brand worked wonders for both Jordan as well as Nike which has since risen to become the largest sportswear brand globally. The Air Jordan brand was a massive part of Nike’s growth and it remains among the key revenue and profitability drivers of the company, decades after Jordan retired for good.
Brand endorsements have been a key driver of Michael Jordan’s net worth and according to Forbes, he made an estimated $2.8 billion pre-tax from endorsing brands like Wheaties, Chevrolet, McDonald’s, Hanes, Gatorade, and more.
Michael Jordan Net Worth: Investments & Business Ventures
Most of Michael Jordan’s net worth today was derived from his various successful investments that he has made over the years, and his total NBA earnings are just under $100 million. His most successful investment was in the NBA franchise the Charlotte Hornets.
He bought a majority stake in the team in 2010 for $275 million, not knowing how absurdly profitable it would become.
Jordan helped run the organization for years despite the team’s extremely poor performance. In fact, the first season after he purchased the team it suffered through one of the worst seasons of any NBA team ever, winning only 7 games and losing 59.
Nevertheless, Jordan kept fighting to build out the team and it would eventually start improving, though it never got past the 1st round of the playoffs. Despite the team’s poor performance, Jordan was able to sell his majority stake in the Hornets to Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin for a whopping $3 billion.
Jordan did however keep a minority stake in Charlotte Hornets, which was known as Charlotte Bobcats before he took the stake, and serves as an alternate governor. In his statement, Jordan said, “The opportunity to be the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets in my home state of North Carolina for the last 13 years has been a tremendous honor.”
While the NBA legend said that he is “proud” of what the team achieved, the team struggled under his ownership and seems to be struggling even more since the sale.
While Charlotte Hornets was Michael Jordan’s biggest investment and a massive contributor to his net worth, he has made quite a few other major investments. These include:
- 23XI Racing: Jordan is a co-owner of the NASCAR team 23XI Racing, led by three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin. Jordan reportedly invested $150 million in the team in 2020.
- Michael Jordan Nissan: Michael Jordan owns the car dealership in Durham North Carolina. The dealership offers new as well as old cars.
- Dapper Labs: Jordan also invested in the blossoming blockchain company Dapper Labs which created the popular NBA Top Shot NFT platform and the new Flow blockchain.
- DraftKings: In 2020, Michael Jordan took an undisclosed stake in sports betting firm DraftKings in exchange for becoming an advisor to the company.
- Cincoro Tequila Brand: In 2019, Michael Jordan along with four other NBA owners launched the Cincoro Tequila brand. It has grown into one of the most expensive tequila brands globally.
Michael Jordan’s Steak House: Michael Jordan owns the Michael Jordan’s Steak House which currently has four locations, Chicago, Oak Brook, Connecticut, and Washington.
Michael Jordan’s Stock and Cryptocurrency Investments
We don’t have much information about Michael Jordan’s stock portfolio but he reportedly lost $500 million shorting GameStop shares during the meme stock mania. It was reported that he partnered with investor Gabriel Plotkin who heavily shorted the stock right before Redditors banded together and launched a massive short squeeze, devastating all of its short sellers.
Meanwhile, he is among the early adopters of digital assets and last year participated in the funding round of The Metaplex Foundation, which is a non-profit organization that supports the development and security of the Metaplex protocol.
Michael Jordan also launched his own NFT (nonfungible token collection last year with only 5,000 NFTs available to buy. The value of these NFTs has since plummeted amid the crash in NFTs.
Michael Jordan Real Estate Investments
Michael Jordan owns several properties including a mansion in Chicago, Illinois, which he has been trying to sell for almost a decade now.
The original listing price of the home was $29 million which has since been slashed by half. Jordan has another 10,000-square-foot home in Park City, Utah which he has put up for sale.
Michael Jordan owns the entire seventh floor of the luxurious Trust Condos in Utah North Carolina. He has another property in North Carolina – a lakefront home in Cornelius on the Peninsula golf course. Jordan bought the six-bedroom home for $2.3 billion in 2013.
Jordan currently lives in his 28,000-square-foot mansion in Jupiter, Florida in the ‘The Bears Club’ community. He reportedly bought the home for $12.8 million and spent $20 million on its renovation and customization. All of his mansions have a full-size basketball court and a cigar room. Incidentally, one of the reasons he hasn’t been able to sell his houses is because of these customizations.
In addition, Jordan also owns a private golf course called Grove XXIII on the outskirts of Hobe Sound, Florida.
The golf course, nicknamed Slaughterhouse 23 (after Kurt Vonnegut’s classic book Slaughterhouse 5), is quite secretive and only a few people have had the pleasure of playing there. It’s quite a luxurious golf course though and even has a drone to deliver refreshments to its exclusive members.
The golf course is valued at over $20 million and reportedly has less than 100 members.
Jordan Leads a Luxurious Life
Jordan is known for his luxurious lifestyle and the obsession with number 23. He is also a car lower and owns multiple models including those from Porsche, Aston Martin, Bentley, and Ferrari. The current value is his car collection is estimated to be around $8.3 million.\
He also owns a Gulfstream G550 private jet whose value is estimated to be more than $60 million.
Michael Jordan’s Philanthropic Activities
Michael Jordan is an active philanthropist who has done an unthinkable amount of good with the help of a long list of charities.
Earlier this year, the NBA legend donated $10 million to Make-A-Wish Foundation which was the biggest single donation from an individual in the organization’s history after donating $5 million in the past.
In his statement, Jordan said, “For the past 34 years, it’s been an honor to partner with Make-A-Wish and help bring a smile and happiness to so many kids.”
Jordan, who is the first professional athlete to have a billionaire status has been associated with several philanthropic causes in the past and after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 he donated $50 million to several organizations working for racial equality.
He is the founding donor of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and contributed $5 million. Jordan also made a multi-million dollar charitable donation to Friends of the Children to support its expansion plans.
In 2019, Jordan donated $7.2 million to build two Novant Health clinics in Charlotte, North Carolina, and said, “It’s not the financials but [it’s] from the heart — a passion from what this city, this state has given back to me.”
He added, “I can never repay what you have given to me. But this is a start.”
What Can We Learn from Michael Jordan’s Life
There is just so much that we can all learn from Michael Jordan’s life.
His determination and perseverance are second to none and it’s clear that these traits were the main driver of his success. Sure, he had a tremendous amount of talent but he still wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without his drive to never give up and to always improve every single day.
Jordan could have given up after being turned down by that high school basketball team many years ago but he did the opposite.
Ever since that day, he has never let himself be bogged down by failures, saying:
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot… and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Even though he is the best basketball player of all time, one of the most important lessons he has to teach is that failure is absolutely essential for success.
Without the various hardships he faced throughout his life, he wouldn’t be the man and athlete he became.
Jordan’s philanthropic activities are also worth following as he has been associated with multiple organizations that work for social causes. He didn’t have to give charities many millions of dollars or visit so many ill children with the Make-A-Wish program but he wanted to make a difference in the lives of others, a noble passion we should all strive for.